Neon Exodus Evangelion 0:1 The Old Soul
by Professor A. Pendragon
Summary: It is the year 2020 AD. The Third Impact has occoured. The last of mankind, 144,000 refugees, are escaping in the UNS 'Ark' but a captured Dummy Plug awakens, contaning Shinji Ikari's copy, and an Angel comes after the escapees. The clone must deal w


  
Genesis. A beginning. A new form. A new time. A new life.   
  
A new death.  
  
A new birth.  
  
An old soul in a new body.  
  
An old quest in a new space.  
  
An old hope in a new vehicle.  
  
The Gospel of the New Century is about to be recanted.  
  
NEON EXODUS EVANGELION  
  
  
Episode 1: An Awakening/The Old Soul  
Written by: Art Damon  
TheProf42@cs.com  
  
  
In the year 2020...  
  
  
The fog lifted from him. It lifted slowly at first, but finally his senses returned to him. Whether he wanted them to was another matter entirely.   
  
He found himself floating in a yellow void. It wasn't a void, actually, but it felt like it at first. He raised his hands feebly and found solid glass surrounding him, in a cylinder. He was floating in a yellow liquid...   
  
'Terminal Dogma!' he thought, his eyes shooting open. 'How did I get down here? What happened to the 17th Angel?'  
  
Beyond the glass, he saw people running into the room the cylinder was in. They were not Ritsuko, nor Misato, nor Rei, nor even Kaji. Not even his father. They were unknown to him... but looked far more friendly than he had ever encountered at NERV, especially at Terminal Dogma. They seemed compassionate and worried.  
  
They seemed curious.   
  
He tried to speak, but the LCL was not electrolyzed. He lifted his hand to press it high to the glass, and startled himself. His skin was pale white. His hands were slender, and feminine. This did not add up.  
  
The voices outside came to him clearly. "It's alright." one said. "We're going to let you out, now."  
  
He managed a faint "Yes," but the LCL still would not let him hear himself. Eventually, the yellow liquid drained, and he fell against the glass. His muscles were very weak, and coughing out the LCL to breathe air seemed difficult-- moreso than usual.   
  
Then, he did two things that caused him to faint. The first was when he moved his hair to realize that it was a pale blue color. He gasped at this; but the second and far more disturbing thing was when he looked down to discover his breasts.  
  
After that, it was only logical to faint.  
  
Much, much later, the darkness of his mind was once again shattered by harsh light. He opened his eyes and groaned softly. It was a high, airy groan that he could have sworn someone else made. A kindly young woman was standing over him, smiling warmly. She had long black hair that appeared tied back (he would later learn that it was actually braided in an intricate pattern, but that mattered very little to him now), deep gray eyes, and a slender, almost girlish face.   
  
Her voice was cute and welcoming. "Hello, there. How are you feeling?"  
"I... I don't know." he told his mouth to say, but again, he heard someone else say it. Someone very familiar said it at the same time he told himself to say it-- but it wasn't him... was it?  
"That's to be expected. You've been locked up for a long time."  
"Locked up?" he tried to say again, but the other voice got to it first.   
"In that Plug. You've got alot going for you, Miss."  
"M-miss? I'm no miss."  
"What?"  
"My.... my name is Shinji Ikari, designated pilot of Unit-01. Age 14."  
The woman suddenly looked distraught. "Oh, my... this is far worse than we'd anticipated..."  
"What?"  
  
She pressed a keypad on the side of the bed he was laying on. The bed's back half inclined up, and he could read her nametag: "Doctor Ishako Ichimi, MD". Shinji looked at it for awhile, then found the familiar insignia in the corner: "NERV". The quote was different, but it was too small for him to read, and the leaf had been replaced by a starburst of some kind.   
  
The doctor tried to regain his attention. "Please look in the mirror, and listen to your own voice!"  
  
Slowly, he turned his head and looked into the mirror on the opposite wall of the bed. He found himself staring into the face of Rei Ayanami, the First Child.  
  
Slowly it came into realization. He was no longer himself, phyically. Somehow, it didn't want to click. He raised his hand, and found that the image of Rei raised her had as well. He leaned foreword for a closer look, and she did as well. She had an identical doctor standing next to her, with the same worried look as Doctor Ichimi.   
  
He opened his mouth and uttered a few fractured words, but her voice said them. The image mouthed them.   
  
Shinji looked down at himself and found a female body there; a pale, slender female body. A lock of pale blue hair fell in front of his eye, and the information hit him once again, irrefutably and unexplainably.  
  
He was now Rei Ayanami. And it was time for he/she to faint again.  
  
  
"Doctor Ichimi, status report." came the call from the Bridge. The young man sat there uncomfortably, still getting accustomed to everything. Ikari had given him control of the ARK just before the lot of them had been put into Cryostasis, and while command was not unknown to him, command of a starship was.  
  
'The crew has been mostly awakened...' he thought, looking at the commpanel nervously. 'I can't believe that dummy plug activated itself, nor that the clone inside managed to survived! It's alive, and it's sentient... I bet NERV hadn't planned for that.'  
  
Ichimi's face appeared in front of him, finally. "I'm here, captain." she said, weary.  
The young man brushed a lock of black hair out of his eyes and assessed things from her image. She was tired, in voice and body, and the young girl clone was sleeping behind her. "Ishako, what's going on? Is she well?"  
"More or less. I'm afraid I know what dummy plug she was from."  
"Unit-01, I could have told you that if it was important."  
"I'm afraid it was more important than we had anticipated. Do you remember how the dummy plugs worked?"  
"I think so... the dummy plugs copied the mental patterns of the pilots and imprinted them onto the clones. It was the third darkest secret in NERV."  
"Right... well, I'm afraid they worked far too well. Our clone..." She lowered her voice. "Our clone thinks she's Shinji Ikari."  
  
Silence permeated the Bridge. The officers who were listening in found themselves stunned by this. Life had just gotten even more complicated for Captain Ryu Kaji.  
  
  
The darkness was comforting to him. It offered no suprises, and if death came, it came quickly. That was, unless, it was filled with dreams. Shinji Ikari's dreams were seldom as bright and beautiful as all those he had heard of, and these were no exception. He saw them all once again, as he had remembered them.   
  
He saw Rei, crying as she detonated Unit-00's core.  
He saw Asuka, as she sat trembling after the 15th Angel.   
He saw Tohji, laying on the bed beside him, his legs gone.  
He saw Kensuke, telling him how lucky he was to be a part of NERV.  
He saw Misato, welcoming him home.  
He saw Ritsuko, saying "Shinji Ikari... YOU will pilot it."  
He saw his father....  
He saw his mother, and he saw Unit-01.  
  
The strange visions came later. Floating in a yellow pool, with hundreds of other people. He could not recognize them, but somehow knew them all.   
  
He was taken away from them, just before Ritsuko destroyed them all. He fought in the battle against Kaworu...  
  
And now, he was here. The darkness began so slip away again as he progressed into painful light...  
  
  
Doctor Ichimi stood above her, smiling as best she could. Things with the poor clone had not gone well. She did not realize she was Rei Ayanami, mainly because she was not. From her 'birth', deep in the bowls of Terminal Dogma in Tokyo-3, she had no mind, no soul. She had been imprinted with the mind of Shinji Ikari, and knew only to be one person: him.   
  
She began to stir again. The pink eyes fluttered open, straining against the light. Her airy, faint voice struggled against itself to speak. "Doctor...?"  
"Yes, dear. I'm here. How are you feeling?"  
"Not well... I'm very confused."  
"That's to be expected. Perhaps you need to be shown where you are. Do you feel well enough to stand?"  
"I... can try..."  
With that, the frail albino sat up and slid her legs off of the bed. She was moving very slowly.  
"Why do I feel so weak?"   
"It's your muscles... we've been trying to rebuild them using vitamin and nanomachine treatment, but it will take awhile."  
"But... why do you need to do that?"  
"... You've never used them before."  
  
She looked up at Ishako, very surprised, but not having the energy to properly express it. The Doctor quickly moved to console her, "Don't worry. All will become clear to you... do you think you can walk? If not, I can get you a chair."  
"I... I will try."  
  
She stood, uneasily, and had to grasp onto the doctor's arm for balance. Finally sure of herself, she looked back up at her. "Can I hang onto you?"  
  
"Of course." Ishako smiled, and helped her walk to the door of the Sickbay. It slid open seemlessly as they approached it, and let out onto a long hallway. At one end of the hallway, light began to fade away into darkness. The girl seemed strangely attracted to it.  
  
She helped her to reach the end of the hallway, where a great window was positioned. The window had a railing in front of it, which the girl took hold of gratefully. She looked up and out of the window, and her jaw fell with a wondrous gasp.   
  
Outside the window, a great panorama of stars against the pure blanket of space went out in all directions, interrupted only by a bright white star, and the blue-white orb of the Earth-and orbiting that at a distance, the Black Moon.  
  
Doctor Ichimi waited a few seconds for it to sink in, then smiled down at her. "You are currently on-board the United Nations Starship ARK. This ship contains the last one hundred and forty-four thousand members of our race, including you. This ship is our sanctuary, and our home."  
  
Rei looked up at her, eyes trying desperately to understand.  
  
"This ship is our last defense against the Angels... a lifeboat for all Mankind."  
  
*******************  
NEON EXODUS EVANGELION  
  
Episode One  
  
AN AWAKENING  
  
  
"Captain Kaji, I think you should see this..." said the Science Officer, turning from his post. He adjusted his glasses as the young captain approached.  
"What do you have for me, Kensuke?" Ryu said, not sure he wanted any more surprises today.  
"Well, we broke lunar orbit two days ago. Since that time, I've been getting some anomalous readings from former Tokyo-3."  
"Anomalous how?"  
  
Kensuke Aida activated a holoscreen for them to look at. It had a 3-D model of Earth, the Moon, and the ARK, all in the positions they were two days ago. Aida had barely managed to jump aboard a ship for the ARK-and he had almost not made it at all. Only the fact that he had been a pilot candidate did they let him live; when their original Science Officer didn't awake from his cryo-sleep, Kensuke was the only logical choice to replace him.  
  
The map began to animate, and waves began to radiate from Japan on the virtual Earth. "For one, I couldn't get any radar images back from that area. Then, I couldn't use ANY kind of sensor other than visual. And just now, even visual sensors stopped working."  
  
The tiny ARK moved past the virtual Japan, and a gray cloud appeared over it.   
  
"How is that possible?" Ryu asked. "Show me Japan now."  
Kensuke complied. Another screen activated, showing the blood red seas of Earth and the destitute continent of Asia... and, sitting right next to it, was a large black blotch. If it hadn't had been so disturbing, it would have been comical.  
"That is truly weird..." the captain said, leaning over the console.  
"I wish that was all it was, sir. That sensor blackout could mean one thing-"  
"An attack?"  
"Possibly. I recommend we go to Battle Stations, Level Three."  
"Agreed. Make it so."  
  
  
Ishako looked up, seeing the yellow light bars come to life. "I wonder what that's about?" she thought aloud, helping Shinji/Rei back into her bed. The girl looked at her. "Is there a problem?" her frail voice inquired.   
"I don't think so, dear... I'm sure it's just precautionary..." the doctor said, not sure she believed herself. The ARK was, supposedly, able to handle any emergency set in front of it-then again, those boasts of NERV's were unable to be tested. The Third Impact had come too soon.   
"Doctor-"  
"Please, call me Ishako."  
"Ishako... why am I in Rei's body?"  
"That will take quite a time to explain. I'm afraid there's a lot that happened that you are unaware of..."  
"My life has been full of lies until now... why should this be any different?"  
  
The girl looked away. Ishako felt only compassion for her, and wondered how confused she had to feel inside. Shinji felt only pain and sadness... once again, he was forced to change. Change in a way he did not want, did not need, and in a way he certainly saw no purpose in.  
  
However, as his mind came near the brink of despair, something else struck him... something of sudden and great import. He lifted his head and spoke to her in Rei's frail voice...  
"Doctor..."  
"Yes, dear?"  
".... I have to use the restroom."  
  
  
"More bad news from the planet, captain!" Aida spoke up, hunched over a console. Kaji turned his chair toward him.   
"Report, Mister Aida."  
"I've got a signal from the planet. It's large, it's Orange, and it's coming from Tokyo-3."  
"On screen!"  
  
Kensuke put the image on the main view screen, in the front of the Bridge. It looked like a flashing yellow dot.  
  
"Magnify."  
  
The image got larger. Now, it looked like a large red dot flashing yellow behind it.  
  
"THAT helped." Ryu muttered.  
"The atmosphere is still obscuring good sensor readings. That's also what's giving it that reddish appearance."  
"Is that what I think it is?"  
"I hope not, Captain. Otherwise, we're in deep trouble..."  
"Not necessarily. We DID recover Unit-01."  
"Unit-01?" Kensuke exclaimed, spinning to face him. "But we don't have a pilot!"  
"On the contrary. I hear she woke up recently."  
The Science officer narrowed his eyes at him, his glasses glinting in the low light of the Bridge. "You're serious."  
"Totally. Rei may be weak, but that IS Shinji Ikari's pattern she carries. That means she can synchronize, correct?"  
"Yes, but-"  
"Good. Contact Doctor Ichimi and have her prepare Rei. Put EVA Unit-01 on standby..."  
  
Ryu was no longer facing him; he had turned to stare at the approaching object, his hands folded in an all too familiar way.   
  
  
"Rei... Shinji..." the doctor said, trying to wake the child in front of her. "Oh, damn, I'll just have to find a new name for you soon."  
She stirred awake. "Hmmm? Yes, doctor?"  
"Dear, we need you to get ready... I'm afraid the Captain wants you to get into your plugsuit."  
Her eyes shot open. "What? Who's the captain?"  
"Captain Ryu Kaji. He wants you to get ready to launch..."  
"Now wait a moment!" she spoke up, sitting. Her red eyes began to scowl, and her face showed how much effort went into this simple action of sitting. "I don't have any idea what is going on, where I am, or even WHO I am anymore. And now, you're expecting me to get ready to fight?"  
"Unfortunately, yes..."  
"I don't even know which EVA I'd use! If I'm Rei, as you say I am, I should use Unit-00, if I'm ME, then I'd use Unit-01-"  
"Dear, please, just cooperate for now..."  
"Oh, of course I will. What choice do I have?"  
  
The girl got off of the bed and hobbled a few steps away. "Where's the locker room?"  
  
  
"Captain, the target has exited the atmosphere and is continuing on-course for the ARK."   
"Do we have a better picture, yet?"  
"Working... on-screen."  
  
A frightful image came to the screen: a scarred white Evangelion, with a gruesome head and folded wings, carrying a green sort of blade in its right hand. The Bridge fell silent, save for the constant whirs and beeps of machinery. Every person there knew what that was...   
  
Evangelion Unit-05... Another incarnation of the 18th Angel.  
  
Kaji stood, staring at the image with a mixture of hatred and determination. "Attention, all decks!" he shouted, the computer automatically relaying his message to the entire ship. "Battle stations, Level One!"  
  
The klaxons sounded, red light bars flared to life, and the Bridge exploded with the sound of people and machines working to defend their home. Laser defenses were brought online, and the ship's structural integrity field increased in power. "Shall we try to activate the AT Field?" Kensuke asked, still sending commands to various stations.  
"We might as well... do you really think it'll work?"  
"It's worth a try... activating shipwide AT Field..."  
  
  
The albino girl stared at the suit they had prepared for her. It was a female fit, but had the same purple and green markings of Shinji's suit. On the collar was "01". She looked at it for quite a time before putting it on, and pressing the pressure clamp on her wrist. With a hiss, the suit stuck to her form. She was about to move to see what they had done to Unit-01 when a sudden feeling of deja-vu struck her.   
  
She looked around, suddenly very alert and afraid. There was a presence in the room... one that she knew. It came from all around her. She knew who this was... but couldn't place it exactly. The doctor walked in, bringing her back to her senses.   
  
"Are you ready? Unit-01 is ready for launch."  
  
She nodded, and followed her out. The room they entered next was almost an exact replica of the Cage she remembered from NERV; massive, cold, and battle-ready. On one of the launch pads sat Unit-01, as stoic and yet as alive as always. There was a large yellow patch across its chest, with a red cross on it.  
  
"What is that?" the girl asked, pointing.  
"Unit-01 had a large puncture in its chest. Something... speared it there."  
"What on Earth could do that? I don't remember it happening..."  
"You wouldn't. You weren't there when it happened."  
  
The girl's confused look did not alleviate, even when they helped her into the Plug. Suddenly, instinct took over and she relaxed as it was shut, turned into the EVA, and filled with LCL.   
  
"Ready to synchronize." She said, opening her eyes.   
"Alright... beginning activation..."  
  
  
Ishako watched breathlessly from the Launch Center as the power graphs climbed. The techs worked to bring the sensory signals further and further up. The green lines neared the point of Absolute Boundary, and after hovering there for awhile, shot up and over, connecting the nerve impulses.   
  
A sigh of relief went over her as she heard the lead tech say, "Synchronization achieved. Current rate is 47%."  
"Any errors?" she asked.  
"A few, but it's well within tolerance levels. We're ready to launch."  
Rei's face appeared on the holoscreen. "Unit-01 ready for launch." She said, her face now filled with grim determination. The doctor had never seen something like this in her-not in the little girl who looked ready to die only a few hours ago. Her heart went out to her, and she secretly wished her well.  
  
'Alright Shinji... don't get killed out there.'  
  
  
  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
  
Fly me to the moon,  
And let me play among the stars  
Let me see what spring is like,  
On Jupiter and Mars...  
In other words,  
Hold my hand.  
In other words,  
Darling, kiss me.  
Fill my heart with song,  
And let me sing forever more.  
You are all I long for,   
All I worship and adore.  
In other words, please be true  
In other words, I love you....  
  
  
Next Episode:  
This has NOT been an easy day for Shinji. First an identity crisis, then an Angel battle, then he discovers that almost everything he knows is dead and gone-or is it? A new name given to him by Doctor Ichimi eases the transition, but a lot of pain inside is only compounded by the events around him. It's all there in the next episode: A Case of Unmistakable Identity-- oh, and there might be a little fan-service, as well. ~_^  



End file.
